"I am excited to be returning to the WTA Elite Trophy as the tournament ambassador again for 2017," said Stefanie Graf. "Last year was my first visit to China and the beautiful city of Zhuhai. It was an incredible experience meeting all the Chinese fans, playing tennis on the new bridge and watching the final."
Graf is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. During her career, she won 107 WTA singles titles, including 22 Grand Slam singles titles. She was the No.1 player on the WTA for a record 377 weeks -- the highest total for any player since the WTA (and ATP) began issuing rankings. In 1988, she became the first player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year.
Graf came to China for the first time last November as the ambassador of the WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai, making her first public appearance in front of Chinese tennis fans. She attended a series of activities to help promote tennis in China, including a visit to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge for a campaign that attracted lots of attention from the media and fans from all over the world.
"It is a great honor for the WTA Elite Trophy to welcome Stefanie back to Zhuhai as our Ambassador, " said Jose Miguel Garcia, Tournament Director.
Presented by Huafa Sports, a subsidiary of the renowned Huafa Group, the WTA Elite Trophy was established in 2015 in partnership with APG, a tailor-made event created by the WTA for the coastal city adjacent to Macau and Hong Kong. With a total prize money $USD 2.28 million and 700 ranking points for the singles champion, the tournament features top 20 ranked players in a singles and doubles round-robin format. Former grand slam Singles winners Venus Williams and Petra Kvitova won the tournament respectively in 2015 and 2016.
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